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Wyndham resale market trends after Ovation

Railman83

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Looking like a lot of undesirable contracts are for sale on EBay and not catching a bid.

Understandable that buyers aren’t lining up to pay for contracts Wyndham won’t take for free, but that seems to be all that is left minus the occasional exception.

I don’t think Wyndham can put floor under the market if they only bid the high end.
 

ronparise

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when I was buying, December was always slow. I dont know why, but thats the way it was. And its when I got the best deals.I dont know the difference between desirable and undesirable contracts.

I know high maintenance fee contracts are less desirable than low maintenance fee contracts, but high fees can be offset by a low purchase price and it was in December that I paid the lowest prices.

For example a million points with a $6 mf that I paid $1000 for will cost me a total of $31000 over my first 5 years of ownership
Compare that to a million points with a $5 mf that I paid $10000 for, That one will cost me $$35000 for the first 5 years of ownership
 

Railman83

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when I was buying, December was always slow. I dont know why, but thats the way it was. And its when I got the best deals.I dont know the difference between desirable and undesirable contracts.

I know high maintenance fee contracts are less desirable than low maintenance fee contracts, but high fees can be offset by a low purchase price and it was in December that I paid the lowest prices.

For example a million points with a $6 mf that I paid $1000 for will cost me a total of $31000 over my first 5 years of ownership
Compare that to a million points with a $5 mf that I paid $10000 for, That one will cost me $$35000 for the first 5 years of ownership
Ron,

Still lurking about to keep the boards interesting?

I watch the EBay auctions for sport, have for several years. There is definitely a trend. It seems skewed toward high fee contracts. A lot of Access too, but single resorts are higher fees....at least it seems that way to me.

My guess is, absent a recession, we are going to see a bifurcation in market. The low fee stuff that is too good to give to Wyndham will bid up, the high fee stuff won’t sell at all and keep being recycled.

Of course my tea leaves have a recession next year and it would be very interesting how Wyndham reacts as the wealth effect reverses. Maybe Ron is allowed back in business!
 

ronparise

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Ron,

Still lurking about to keep the boards interesting?

I watch the EBay auctions for sport, have for several years. There is definitely a trend. It seems skewed toward high fee contracts. A lot of Access too, but single resorts are higher fees....at least it seems that way to me.

My guess is, absent a recession, we are going to see a bifurcation in market. The low fee stuff that is too good to give to Wyndham will bid up, the high fee stuff won’t sell at all and keep being recycled.

Of course my tea leaves have a recession next year and it would be very interesting how Wyndham reacts as the wealth effect reverses. Maybe Ron is allowed back in business!

I didn’t see the connection then. I started buying Wyndham during the toward the end of the great recession. My first purchase was one of those high mf contracts you reference that wouldnt sell at any price, except to someone like me that knew nothing. So I bid a dollar and got it 385000 points. (The surprise that made it work was that It came to me with Silver VIP status)

in any case, those were the days of $1 timeshares and when the next recession happens I think you are absolutely right.... the good stuff will sell, but the crap wont. The difference between then and now, is Ovation.. I dont see that Wyndham rejects anything because of high mf so the junk dosent have to go to ebay

Having said that, the timeshare relief companies are still in business and able to extract money from Wyndham owners that want out. Those contracts will end up on ebay because Wyndham (Ovation) wont do business with the timeshare relief companies

and as you say... some wont sell at any price

I dont think Wyndham will let me back in, but if they did, I dont want back in as a business. Maybe enough for a week or two each year, but thats it
 

Richelle

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I bought a National Harbor for $510 in October and Bali Hai for $99 this month. The desirables are still there, but I do suspect the prices will go up as more and more people find Ovations and less end up on eBay. However, Wyndham can choose to end Ovations at anytime or decide to be extremely picky. If that happens, I imagine we’ll go back to more $1 timeshares.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

ronparise

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I bought a National Harbor for $510 in October and Bali Hai for $99 this month. The desirables are still there, but I do suspect the prices will go up as more and more people find Ovations and less end up on eBay. However, Wyndham can choose to end Ovations at anytime or decide to be extremely picky. If that happens, I imagine we’ll go back to more $1 timeshares.


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unless wyndham steps up their development of new resorts, they need Ovation to supply the sales staff
 

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That is assuming that Wyndham is not going to downsize their sales staff.
 

Richelle

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Braindead

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I bought Bali Hai for $99 this month.
You did ? If that was the Bali Hai 126k odd year [63k annually basis] on eBay with a winning bid of $99
You paid:
$99 winning bid
$299 Wyndham transfer fee
$250 closing costs
$103 MFs for January-March

$751.00 is the purchase price for 63k annual points is almost $12 per 1k points. Not a bad price but not cheap or in the tank in my opinion.
That’s assuming it gets transferred by the end of March or you’ll have to add more of the 6 months of MFs you paid upfront
 

Jason245

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You did ? If that was the Bali Hai 126k odd year [63k annually basis] on eBay with a winning bid of $99
You paid:
$99 winning bid
$299 Wyndham transfer fee
$250 closing costs
$103 MFs for January-March

$751.00 is the purchase price for 63k annual points is almost $12 per 1k points. Not a bad price but not cheap or in the tank in my opinion.
That’s assuming it gets transferred by the end of March or you’ll have to add more of the 6 months of MFs you paid upfront

I think cheap is a matter of perspective. Someone probably paid 10-15k for that originally. By comparison, this is plenty cheap.

In context of getting the absolute best deal, that may never be achieved, but in context of getting a high quality vacation experience at an affordable price... well only the buyer can say.

As for the larger market as a whole, I think that there are a number of disconnects in our economy and that the owners of capital have done very well these last 10 years, while the working class has not. However, given recent wage inflation and other factors, we might start to see an interesting economic shift. I doubt we will see anything resembling the great recession, but we are due for a dot.com level bust. Just remember, almost all those analysis you see on TV and working for those big investment firms etc have never even lived through a recession as workers (maybe some had exposure to the great recession, but how many were around for the .com?).

Only time will tell, but the longest bull in history has to end its run eventually.
 

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I think cheap is a matter of perspective. Someone probably paid 10-15k for that originally. By comparison, this is plenty cheap.
My perspective is:
Current resale compared to past resale
Apples to apples comparison

Your perspective must be :
Wyndham direct purchase compared to resale
Apples to something more than oranges

From your perspective would 50% discount be cheap ? $5,000 for 63k annual points contract. If so I have 2,000,000 points for sale
 

Richelle

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I think cheap is a matter of perspective. Someone probably paid 10-15k for that originally. By comparison, this is plenty cheap.

In context of getting the absolute best deal, that may never be achieved, but in context of getting a high quality vacation experience at an affordable price... well only the buyer can say.

As for the larger market as a whole, I think that there are a number of disconnects in our economy and that the owners of capital have done very well these last 10 years, while the working class has not. However, given recent wage inflation and other factors, we might start to see an interesting economic shift. I doubt we will see anything resembling the great recession, but we are due for a dot.com level bust. Just remember, almost all those analysis you see on TV and working for those big investment firms etc have never even lived through a recession as workers (maybe some had exposure to the great recession, but how many were around for the .com?).

Only time will tell, but the longest bull in history has to end its run eventually.

You did ? If that was the Bali Hai 126k odd year [63k annually basis] on eBay with a winning bid of $99
You paid:
$99 winning bid
$299 Wyndham transfer fee
$250 closing costs
$103 MFs for January-March

$751.00 is the purchase price for 63k annual points is almost $12 per 1k points. Not a bad price but not cheap or in the tank in my opinion.
That’s assuming it gets transferred by the end of March or you’ll have to add more of the 6 months of MFs you paid upfront


I negotiated with the seller before it closed and offered the opening bid, closing cost, and six months of maintenance fees, if the seller paid the $299 transfer fee. Also, the maintenance fees they advertised were wrong. He showed me their assessment for 2018, and the monthly fee (with program fee) is $21.63 a month (not $36). They are asking for six months of maintence fees upfront. So January to June. Six months is $129.78. The last Bali Hai I bought from him in July, made it to my account in five weeks, so yes, it will be there before March. Probably more like end of January, but we'll say end of February. Those four extra months of maintenance fees, are maintenance fees i'd have to pay anyway, so I'm not going to include those 4 months in my final cost. So, the breakdown:

Final bid: $99
Closing cost: $250
Jan -February maintenance fees: $43.26
Total $392.26.

$6.22 per 1,000 points. Considering the most recent Bali Hai contract went for $9.60 per 1,000, $6.22 is cheap. That was a 75,000 annual that went for $421 and the buyer had to pay the $299 transfer fee. The one before that was a 256,000 biannual that sold for $1,000. Add in the $299 transfer fee, and you get $10.14 per 1,000. The one before that was $8.05 per 1,000.

When you compare it to the $1 contracts, it's not cheap. However, those generally have higher maintenance fees. For example, I got a 308,000 annual branson contract for $1. The 2018 maintenance fees on that one (not including program fee) is $6.13 per 1,000. This new Bali Hai is $3.54 per 1,000 (2018). Difference of $2.59 per 1,000 points. That's savings of $163.17 a year based on 63,000 points. Assuming the gap remains the same or similar, it will take me less then 3 years to make up for my upfront costs, in the form maintenance fee savings.

I only planned on having branson for 3 years, so I went for the cheaper contract with the higher maintenance fees, rather then spend a lot upfront. Plus Bal Hai contracts that size were going for about $3,500 and up and they were rare. It would have taken me over 4 years to make that money back assuming I could get one.
 

Jason245

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My perspective is:
Current resale compared to past resale
Apples to apples comparison

Your perspective must be :
Wyndham direct purchase compared to resale
Apples to something more than oranges

From your perspective would 50% discount be cheap ? $5,000 for 63k annual points contract. If so I have 2,000,000 points for sale


My perspective has more to do with how much it would cost me to rent a similar place in a similar location (that I was already going to be going to whether or not I owned) for cash as compared to how much it costs me for MF + the sunk buy in cost, and how long before that savings leads to a break even or positive position.

e.g.
Buy in cost = 600
MF = 1500
Cash rental = 2000
Break even = less than 2 years (I have to pay 2 years worth of MF before I can end a year saving more than the cash that went out the door in total LTD for the purchase).

Anything with more than 5 years to break even I wouldn't look at. I tend to prefer payback within 3 years or less.

Anything where my cash savings as compared to rentals is less than 30% I probably won't look at either. (e.g. If MF are 1500, I would not consider it a decent buy unless cash rental is ~2200 for similar accommodations).

When the economics/projected economics of owned timeshare over a 5 year period start looking like I am saving less than 30% I look into dumping (haven't dumped yet, but that is the rule I established for myself when I bought).

Stops me from chasing after pennies or holding onto things that have more potential downfall (e.g. special assessments, and perpetual fee increases greater than the comparable rental costs increases) than upside.

I think that this board as a whole sometimes becomes overly focused on finding the absolute best deal that is possible (e.g. race for lowest MF at lowest price), that anytime a person buys something other than that, it is considered not a good deal.

We sometimes forget that a good deal is how much money you are saving on vacation experiences we were planning on having anyways and might not otherwise be able to afford.
 

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That is assuming that Wyndham is not going to downsize their sales staff.

Im reminded of the story of the frog and the scorpion.

Wyndham sells because thats what they do. Wyndham is basically a realestate sales company, They develop property to sell, and they manage the property and the club because they have too.

Wyndham presented Ovation as some wonderful thing they were doing to give their owners a way out, as their life circumstances changed (old age, death, financial reversals, etc) and toput the pinch on the timeshare relief companies, and I suppose that was part of it. But what they really did is to assure themselves new cheap inventory to sell. Buy low, sell high is their motto, and whats lower than zero?
 

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I'm assuming that Wydham has ROFR for any resale contract purchases. I suspect, and I want to say that I have no evidence either way for this, that if anything Ovations will expand over time, such that secondary market contract resales will become more rare. Ovations is pretty much a no brainer for Wyndham, given they are able to absorb the points back into their inventory, and then resell those points as developer points over time. Someone mentioned development of new resorts, which is at least in part funded by developer points purchases over time. I suspect that the growing secondary resale market has negatively impacted developer points purchases as a source of new resort development funding. Eventually, I suspect that Ovations, if successful (and it seems fairly successful to date), will result in Wyndham exercising ROFR on secondary market resale contracts.
 

Jason245

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I'm assuming that Wydham has ROFR for any resale contract purchases. I suspect, and I want to say that I have no evidence either way for this, that if anything Ovations will expand over time, such that secondary market contract resales will become more rare. Ovations is pretty much a no brainer for Wyndham, given they are able to absorb the points back into their inventory, and then resell those points as developer points over time. Someone mentioned development of new resorts, which is at least in part funded by developer points purchases over time. I suspect that the growing secondary resale market has negatively impacted developer points purchases as a source of new resort development funding. Eventually, I suspect that Ovations, if successful (and it seems fairly successful to date), will result in Wyndham exercising ROFR on secondary market resale contracts.


I think the resale market is not even thought of as a serious competitor for Wyndham.

If I were to hazard to guess, Ovation is a cheaper solution for them than dealing with Defaults of owners, or owners who lawfirms to do creative things to get out from under the annual liabilities.

If anything, I can see Whndham becoming even more selective when it comes to ROFOR. After all, why pay cash out of pocket for something that you are getting for free regularly and selling for 10-20k to a new Sucker customer.
 

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I think Rofr is only built into the Club access contracts that the original deeded ones.
 

Richelle

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If anything, I can see Whndham becoming even more selective when it comes to ROFOR. After all, why pay cash out of pocket for something that you are getting for free regularly and selling for 10-20k to a new Sucker customer.



I think Rofr is only built into the Club access contracts that the original deeded ones.



I'm assuming that Wydham has ROFR for any resale contract purchases.



The only place I’ve seen ROFR, is in the National Harbor bylaws. Even then, it specified that ROFR applied to PR inventory only, and not regular inventory. I did not see it in the Club Wyndham trust agreement. So unless I am looking at an outdated copy of the trust agreement, the resort bylaws have a ROFR clause, or your individual contract has a clause, there is no ROFR.
 
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Jan M.

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Someone mentioned development of new resorts, which is at least in part funded by developer points purchases over time.

If I'm remembering correctly from what has been posted on TUG, Bonnet Creek, 10 years ago?, was the last resort Wyndham had any of their own money into building. Since then their business plan has been entering into deals to market and sell what someone else has spent the money to build or re-purpose. There is more profit or maybe not as much but still acceptable profits for less risk.

I think the resale market is not even thought of as a serious competitor for Wyndham.

Ron Parise has posted about Wyndham and the resale market. Wyndham used to and may still be for all we know acquiring inventory on eBay and though other resale sellers. One of the purposes of Ovations was always to acquire inventory for free or very minimal cost. When you think about it whether or not Wyndham intended to influence the resale market or not they still have. Wyndham always has well thought out plans when it comes to making them money. A good plan rarely has only just one angle/benefit and has both short and long term goals. I think it is highly unlikely that Wyndham didn't intend to exert control or influence of the resale market.

A lot of the inventory that Wyndham has acquired through Ovations has been put into Club Wyndham Access. Wyndham still holds and controls the voting rights for those deeds. Remember CWA owners only have a contract for the use of a certain number of points, they don't actually own deeded property like Club Wyndham Select owners do. Wyndham employs a lot of people at those resorts they manage and makes money off managing the resorts, providing services and also the renovations. A resort Board they couldn't control could be a threat to their profits from those things.

How many times have we seen people here on TUG talking about giving something back through Ovations and we've suggested they list it on the Bargain deals before they do that. Unfortunately it is easier and quicker to go through Ovations. A big company like Wyndham wouldn't have a whole department dedicated to handling Ovations if they couldn't justify it. I would guess that Ovations is considered a major success by Wyndham.
 
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I think National Harbor was the last resort Wyndham built on their own.
 

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I think National Harbor was the last resort Wyndham built on their own.
I dont know the last resort wyndham developed from raw land to finished resort, but in recent years They moved to a "capital lite" strategy. The idea is to use as little company capital as possible in developing new resorts. I think Reunion was one of the first under this concept. At Reunion they took finished condo units from a developer, or the developers bank, and sold them as timeshares. . Clearwater was developed by some rich doctor, and wyndham took the finished units one at a time to sell as timeshares. Again no company money was tied up in development. Ovation is just an another capital light strategy Here they get no cost inventory to sell

While national Harbor may be the last resort Wyndham built, they didnt develop the land. The land was once a gravel pit owned by Smoot Sand and Gravel. and developed into the new town called National Harbor by a Maryland land developer. All the infrastructure, Water, Sewer, Electricity roads etc was planned, and built by others Wyndham started the resort with all that in place

Compare that with Bonnet Creek, where Wyndham started with raw land and brought it to what you see today themselves, with company money
 

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If I'm remembering correctly from what has been posted on TUG, Bonnet Creek, 10 years ago?, was the last resort Wyndham had any of their own money into building. Since then their business plan has been entering into deals to market and sell what someone else has spent the money to build or re-purpose. There is more profit or maybe not as much but still acceptable profits for less risk.



Ron Parise has posted about Wyndham and the resale market. Wyndham used to and may still be for all we know acquiring inventory on eBay and though other resale sellers. One of the purposes of Ovations was always to acquire inventory for free or very minimal cost. When you think about it whether or not Wyndham intended to influence the resale market or not they still have. Wyndham always has well thought out plans when it comes to making them money. A good plan rarely has only just one angle/benefit and has both short and long term goals. I think it is highly unlikely that Wyndham didn't intend to exert control or influence of the resale market.

A lot of the inventory that Wyndham has acquired through Ovations has been put into Club Wyndham Access. Wyndham still holds and controls the voting rights for those deeds. Remember CWA owners only have a contract for the use of a certain number of points, they don't actually own deeded property like Club Wyndham Select owners do. Wyndham employs a lot of people at those resorts they manage and makes money off managing the resorts, providing services and also the renovations. A resort Board they couldn't control could be a threat to their profits from those things.

How many times have we seen people here on TUG talking about giving something back through Ovations and we've suggested they list it on the Bargain deals before they do that. Unfortunately it is easier and quicker to go through Ovations. A big company like Wyndham wouldn't have a whole department dedicated to handling Ovations if they couldn't justify it. I would guess that Ovations is considered a major success by Wyndham.


I dont believe Wyndham ever bought off ebay, but they did buy from a number of us that bought off ebay. No one would tell me it was Wyndham, I was selling through a broker to some LLC... but Im pretty sure it was controlled by Wyndham
 

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I with Ron on this one. I bought over 2 million points starting in 2010 and I've never paid more than $3/1k on anything including all cost and fees. I find that patience works. I use a bid sniper and I set the price I'm willing to live with. I lose a lot but when I win its a great deal. I will also agree that the best prices are in the November - January range. Good luck
 

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I dont believe Wyndham ever bought off ebay, but they did buy from a number of us that bought off ebay. No one would tell me it was Wyndham, I was selling through a broker to some LLC... but Im pretty sure it was controlled by Wyndham
Ironic that you were selling through a broker to a LLC for Wyndham when some brokers that list a lot on eBay have chosen not to sell to LLCs or Trusts.
 

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FWIW I believe the upcoming Portland, OR WM/Wyndham resort is Wyndham ground up.
 
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